Jackson accuser can recall 'only two molestations'

Michael Jackson's accuser told the leading police investigator of the case that he had been molested five to seven times but could only describe two incidents in detail, a jury heard today.

Santa Barbara County district attorney Tom Sneddon asked Sheriff's Sergeant Steve Robel about the numbers in order to account for differences that have emerged during evidence in Mr Jackson's child molestation trial.

Sgt Robel told the court yesterday in Santa Maria, California, that the boy twice told investigators he was molested five times. The boy himself testified earlier to only two instances of abuse but said he believed there may have been more.

Today, Sgt Robel said the boy, who is now 15 and was 13 at the time of the alleged abuse, told him "it happened between five and seven times but he could not articulate exactly" what happened every time.

The investigator said that, since the first interviews of the boy in July 2003, he has only been able to provide detailed accounts of two alleged molestations. The possibility of the boy not being aware or fully aware at certain times has been raised in evidence by the boy's brother, who said he twice witnessed his brother being molested while asleep.

In court yesterday, Sgt Robel said he urged the accuser and his family to go forward with claims against the singer by promising them: "We're going to try our best to make this case work."

Defence lawyer Robert Sanger confronted Sgt Robel with those and other statements from recorded interviews, suggesting that they indicated investigators were biased against Mr Jackson from the beginning.

He quoted Sgt Robel as saying, "One thing I want to emphasise is you guys are doing the right thing here. ... I don't care how much money they have. He's the one who's done wrong. ... We're going to try to bring him to justice."

Mr Sanger asked: "That's not the statement of someone with an open mind who's trying to find the truth, is it?"

Sgt Robel said that during his training he was taught to make such a statement to alleged victims. "That statement is to reassure them," he said, "because they were terrified when they came forward. It took us two weeks to get them to come in."

Mr Sanger asked him whether his training did not in fact teach him to be "honest and not to tell them they're right, everyone else is wrong?".

The witness answered that that was not the technique he was taught.

Sgt Robel's evidence came after the singer's accuser finished his evidence by saying he told a school administrator that Mr Jackson had not molested him because he wanted to avoid ridicule from classmates.

Defence attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr revealed on Monday in the cross-examination of the boy that he had once denied being molested in a talk with Jeffrey Alpert, a dean at John Burroughs Middle School in Los Angeles.

The boy said yesterday that he got into fights with other students when he returned from Jackson's Neverland Ranch in March 2003 because they mocked him.

"All the kids would laugh at me and try to push me around and say, 'That's the kid that got raped by Michael Jackson'," said the boy, who alleges Jackson molested him at least twice at Neverland.

He said fighting got him summoned to the office of a school dean, and that was when "I told him that it didn't happen."

"Why did you tell him that?" Mr Sneddon asked.

"All the kids were already making fun of me in school and I didn't want them to think it happened," the boy said.

The conversation was prompted by the February 2003 British television documentary by Martin Bashir that showed Mr Jackson with the boy. In the film, Mr Jackson acknowledged sharing his bed with children, although he characterised it as innocent and non-sexual.

Prosecutors allege that Mr Jackson, 46, molested the boy at his Neverland ranch, plying him with alcohol in order to abuse him and conspiring to commit child abduction, extortion and false imprisonment. He denies the charges.